You don't have to "guess" the order of operations - they are clearly stated.

Parentheses (brackets) working from most deeply nested outwards, then indices (powers), then multiplication and division (equal priority), then addition and subtraction (equal priority). "Equal priority?" you say, "So how do I know which one to do first?". Obviously you're forgetting the other rule - work from left to right.

Multiplication does NOT necessarily come before division. The rule for determining which to evaluate first is to do it from left to right. Also, grouping symbols (such as parentheses) only get precedence when operating within them, not on the group as a whole.

For all of you that say you have to multiply the 3 to the 2 before dividing just because it is in parenthesis are just plain dumb. You could put every single one of those numbers into parenthesis and still end up with the EXACT same problem. When it comes down to the multiplication and division, it is done from left to right even if there is a solo number in parenthesis.

Last poster wanted to distribute the two but forgot you'd have to include the "6/" with it. So it would be:6/2(1+2)= 3(1+2) = (3*1+3*2) = 3+6 = 9

The reason this is confusing is because of the division symbol isn't usually written in this form for real math, and something next to parenthesis is just shorthand for multiply. It's less confusing if you wrote it this way:

In PEMDAS formula, which comes first wether multiplication/division, u do it first. So in this problem, 6/2(3), u should divide 6/2 first like addtion and substraction, whichever comes first u do first.

Okay so I'm confused. I got 7.You have 6/2(1+2) right? Why not distrubute 6/(2*1+2^2) to get 6/2+4? Then 6/2 is 3. 3 plus 4 is 7. I'm really confused rn because I though anything in a(b+c) form equaled ab+ac. Can someone tell me why this isn't correct?